There will be no mistaking an Anthem when you see one coming down the road. Mack has dumped the conservative Pinnacle set-back axle model in favor of this show-stopper, writes Jim Park in this Test Drive.

The Pinnacle-pulled rig weighed close to 80,000 pounds. So how did it pull the hills at such low engine speeds? With 1,860 lb-ft of torque, and with no more speed loss than one would find with higher revving engines.

Stephen Roy, who has been Mack Trucks president, sales and marketing for North America since Jan. 1, spent the last five years in aftermarket parts and service, which he says is key to the company’s continued success. We sat down with Roy for more insight.

“Proprietary” is a magic word among truck builders. It describes components of the company’s own manufacture or design that are installed on the company’s own trucks. For truck users, this can be a good thing, because they’re designed to work specifically with a company’s other components.

While most of the early problems have been engineered out of the exhaust gas recirculation systems on today’s clean diesel engines, corroded coolers, stuck valves and other problems still plague owners of older equipment.

Is trucking in for a transformation? Many believe that long-haul trucking will become less important as regional operations grow and intermodal takes over more long-haul freight, and that will change the type of heavy-duty tractor bought by many trucking companies.

Is this single-rear-axle truck the type of medium-heavy-duty model that Mack should have brought out first? I asked that question two years ago when I saw the initial offering, the tandem-axle Granite MHD. I figured other than the tandem, it was just right for municipal fleets and others who don’t need high carrying capacity.

Volvo Trucks North America believes dimethyl ether, or DME, is the real fuel of the future, and the company intends to get it to market as a motor fuel by 2015 in Volvo VN models as well as Mack Pinnacle trucks from its sister company.

Coming up: another “non-event” for brakes? That’s what Phase Two of new federal stopping-distance requirements will be for truck operators, according to people we talked with. Stronger, higher-performance brakes on certain vehicles won’t even cost much more in most cases. But like Phase One two years ago, which was hardly noticed by truckers, Phase Two represents a lot of work for brake makers and truck builders.

Traditional thinking on automated manual transmissions has it that AMTs are the great equalizers – bridgers of skill gaps between the best and the worst drivers in the fleet. While that’s still true, AMTs now bring even more to the fuel-economy table, offering fuel savings in their own right beyond what even the most professionally driven manual transmission could accomplish.

Mack now offers a new engine overhaul program to better serve Mack E7 engine owners. The Mack Purebred Overhaul program is an industry standout, offering extended warranty coverage of up to three years or 350,000 miles

Cruising down the Interstate, you glance at the tachometer and gasp as you see the needle hovering at under 1,200 rpm. Yet the engine isn't vibrating or straining, and the rig continues to move steadily forward

Mack and Volvo both announced that their model year 2014 trucks and tractors are now certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as meeting 2014 fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas regulations

Cruising down the Interstate, you glance at the tachometer and gasp as you see the needle hovering at under 1,200 rpm. Yet the engine isn't vibrating or straining, and the rig continues to move steadily forward